# Clay Alternatives 2027: 12 Paid, Free & Open-Source

Source: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/clay/
Prices checked: 2026-11-11 (Zekai Price Ledger)

The best Clay alternatives in 2027 are Apollo.io (best overall), Hunter (best free plan: 50 credits a month) and OpenOutreach (best open source, GPL-3.0). Clay itself starts at $167/mo. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 11 Nov 2026; 9 more are compared below, including 3 with a free plan and 3 open source.

| Tool | Type | Starting price | Free plan limit | Licence | Best for | Price checked | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clay (the tool being replaced) | — | $167/mo | 500 actions and 100 data credits a month | — | — | 2026-11-11 | [pricing](https://www.clay.com/pricing) |
| Apollo.io | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | Yes | — | Contact database with built-in sequencing |  | [site](https://www.apollo.io) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/apollo-io/) |
| Hunter | Free plan + paid | $34/mo billed yearly | 50 credits per month | — | Finding and verifying work email addresses | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://hunter.io) [pricing](https://hunter.io/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/hunter-io/) |
| Persana AI | Free plan + paid | $151/mo billed yearly | 50 credits | — | AI prospecting with credit-based enrichment | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.persana.ai) [pricing](https://www.persana.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/persana-ai/) |
| UpLead | Paid | $99/mo | No free plan | — | Verified contact data bought by the credit | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://www.uplead.com) [pricing](https://www.uplead.com/pricing/) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/uplead/) |
| Origami | Paid | $99/mo | No free plan | — | Chat-driven list building with a sequencer | 2026-11-11 | [site](https://origami.chat) [pricing](https://origami.chat/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/origami/) |
| Lusha | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | Up to 40 credits per month | — | Browser-extension contact lookup with CRM sync |  | [site](https://www.lusha.com) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/lusha/) |
| LeadIQ | Free | Free plan; paid price not published | 1 user, 50 credits | — | Prospecting with job-change tracking |  | [site](https://leadiq.com) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/leadiq/) |
| ZoomInfo | Paid | Not checked | No free plan | — | Enterprise B2B database with intent data |  | [site](https://www.zoominfo.com) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/zoominfo/) |
| OpenOutreach | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | GPL-3.0 | Self-hosted lead discovery from a product description |  | [site](https://github.com/eracle/OpenOutreach) [code](https://github.com/eracle/OpenOutreach) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/openoutreach/) |
| Prospex (business-leads-ai-automation) | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | AGPL-3.0 | Local business leads scraped from Google Maps |  | [site](https://github.com/asiifdev/business-leads-ai-automation) [code](https://github.com/asiifdev/business-leads-ai-automation) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/business-leads-ai-automation/) |
| Sellbird (formerly Harvey) | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | AGPL-3.0 | Agent that finds, verifies and emails prospects |  | [site](https://sellbird.ai) [code](https://github.com/ethanplusai/sellbird) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/harvey/) |
| Google Maps Scraper | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Free Google Maps business data and emails |  | [site](https://github.com/gosom/google-maps-scraper) [code](https://github.com/gosom/google-maps-scraper) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/google-maps-scraper/) |

## How each alternative compares with Clay

- **Apollo.io** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): Apollo holds its own contact database and its Basic plan adds email sequencing; plans are Free, Basic, Professional and Custom, all applied account-wide rather than per user. Switch if you want one tool holding the contact database and the outreach sequences, without wiring data providers. Stay with Clay if you need to chain many data providers and AI research steps into custom enrichment tables.
- **Hunter** (Free plan + paid, $34/mo billed yearly, checked 2026-11-11): Hunter charges one credit per email found and half a credit per email verified, and credits reset monthly without rolling over, unlike Clay's yearly data-credit pools. Switch if your main need is finding and verifying email addresses at low cost, without building workflows. Stay with Clay if you need phone numbers, AI web research and multi-provider waterfalls in the same table.
- **Persana AI** (Free plan + paid, $151/mo billed yearly, checked 2026-11-11): Persana sells credit tiers: Free has 50 credits, Starter is $85 monthly for 2000 credits, and Growth is $151 a month billed annually for 60k credits a year. Switch if you want a Clay-style AI prospecting tool with simpler credit tiers and a lower entry price. Stay with Clay if you want action-based workflows with Claygent research and more provider coverage per table.
- **UpLead** (Paid, $99/mo, checked 2026-11-11): UpLead sells verified contacts by the credit: Essentials is $99 a month for 170 credits, and each credit unlocks one contact with email and mobile direct dial. Switch if you just need verified contacts bought in fixed monthly credit packs, not an enrichment workflow builder. Stay with Clay if you want to enrich your own lists across several providers and automate research with AI.
- **Origami** (Paid, $99/mo, checked 2026-11-11): Origami's Starter is $99 a month including $165 of usage, with an unlimited sequencer and five email plus three LinkedIn senders included, built around a chat interface. Switch if you prefer describing a lead list in chat and sending sequences from the same product. Stay with Clay if you want table-based control over each enrichment step, provider order and row-level logic.
- **Lusha** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): Lusha's Free plan gives up to 40 credits a month, with one credit per verified email and five per phone number, plus a browser extension and CRM integrations. Switch if reps need quick email and phone lookups from a browser extension while browsing profiles and sites. Stay with Clay if you are building automated enrichment pipelines that call many data sources per row.
- **LeadIQ** (Free, Free plan; paid price not published): LeadIQ's Free plan covers 1 user and 50 credits with job-change tracking and a Chrome extension, and Pro is billed per credit volume with a monthly or annual toggle. Switch if you want job-change alerts and a prospecting Chrome extension feeding your CRM for one or few reps. Stay with Clay if you need a custom-built waterfall across many providers instead of one database.
- **ZoomInfo** (Paid, Not checked): ZoomInfo sells packages across contact data and GTM applications and publishes no list prices; pricing is requested through a contact form. Switch if you want a single large enterprise database with sales and marketing applications under one contract. Stay with Clay if you want transparent self-serve plans and need to mix several data sources in one table.
- **OpenOutreach** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Builds a list from your product description and has an LLM judge each candidate against your ideal customer profile with written reasons; it holds no database and relies on BetterContact for lookups. Switch if you want one self-hosted agent that finds, qualifies and emails leads without a table of providers. Stay with Clay if you want to design each enrichment step yourself across many data sources.
- **Prospex (business-leads-ai-automation)** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Scrapes Google Maps for local businesses, scores leads with an LLM and drafts outreach for email, WhatsApp, Instagram and LinkedIn, so it suits local-business lists rather than B2B job titles. Switch if you want Google Maps lead lists and drafted outreach generated on your own infrastructure. Stay with Clay if you want waterfall enrichment across many providers with your own API keys in one table.
- **Sellbird (formerly Harvey)** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Finds local businesses free on OpenStreetMap, reads each company's own website for buying signals, verifies one email per contact and only sends to deliverable addresses after your approval. Switch if you want an agent that runs discovery, verification and sending itself on your own computer. Stay with Clay if you want to inspect and tune every enrichment column in a spreadsheet-style table.
- **Google Maps Scraper** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Extracts name, address, phone, website, rating, reviews and emails for Google Maps places into CSV or JSON through a CLI, web UI or REST API; it is a scraper, not a contact database. Switch if you want a free scraper feeding local-business rows into your own spreadsheets or scripts. Stay with Clay if you want built-in provider lookups, AI columns and CRM sync without writing glue code.

## Open-source options in detail

- **OpenOutreach** (https://github.com/eracle/OpenOutreach): Licence: GPL-3.0; Commercial use: Yes; GPL-3.0 means sharing source if you distribute a modified version.; Runs on: Any machine that runs Python with uv; a Docker image exists for servers.; Setup: moderate: Needs an LLM key, a BetterContact key and a mailbox app password.; Last commit: 2026-11-13; GitHub stars: 3,685 (2026-11-13)
- **Prospex (business-leads-ai-automation)** (https://github.com/asiifdev/business-leads-ai-automation): Licence: AGPL-3.0; Commercial use: Yes; AGPL-3.0 means sharing changes if you run it as a service.; Runs on: Docker host for PostgreSQL 16 and Redis 7; an OpenAI-compatible LLM.; Setup: moderate: Docker Compose for the databases, Node.js 20 and pnpm 9 to develop.; Last commit: 2026-11-05; GitHub stars: 244 (2026-11-13)
- **Sellbird (formerly Harvey)** (https://github.com/ethanplusai/sellbird): Licence: AGPL-3.0; Commercial use: Yes; AGPL-3.0 means sharing changes if you run it as a service.; Runs on: Your own computer with Python 3.11 or newer; no GPU needed.; Setup: moderate: Python install, a signed-in Claude or Codex CLI, and a sending mailbox.; Last commit: 2026-11-10; Last release: 2026-11-06; GitHub stars: 5,373 (2026-11-13)
- **Google Maps Scraper** (https://github.com/gosom/google-maps-scraper): Licence: MIT; Commercial use: Yes (MIT).; Runs on: Docker or a prebuilt binary on Windows, macOS or Linux.; Setup: easy: One docker run command, or download the binary and run it.; Last commit: 2026-11-08; Last release: 2026-11-08; GitHub stars: 8,014 (2026-11-13)

## Questions

### What is the best alternative to Clay in 2027?
Apollo.io is the best overall Clay alternative on this page (Free plan; paid price not published). For no cost, Hunter has a free plan (50 credits per month). To self-host, OpenOutreach is open source (GPL-3.0).

### Is there a free version of Clay?
Yes. Clay has a free plan: 500 actions and 100 data credits a month. Paid plans start at $167/mo, checked on 11 Nov 2026.

### Is there a 100% free alternative to Clay?
Yes. OpenOutreach, Prospex (business-leads-ai-automation), Sellbird (formerly Harvey), Google Maps Scraper are open source and free to self-host. Apollo.io, Hunter, Persana AI, Lusha, LeadIQ have a free plan with limits, shown in the table.

### What is cheaper than Clay?
Origami starts at $99/mo, against $167/mo for Clay, as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 11 Nov 2026.

### How much do Clay alternatives cost for a team of 5?
If each of 5 people buys the entry paid plan, at the prices Zekai checked on 11 Nov 2026, the monthly cost is Hunter $170/mo, UpLead $495/mo, Origami $495/mo, against Clay $835/mo for Clay. Team and business plans can cost more per seat. The Zekai Cost Finder on this page recalculates for any team size.

### Which is better, Apollo.io or Clay?
Apollo holds its own contact database and its Basic plan adds email sequencing; plans are Free, Basic, Professional and Custom, all applied account-wide rather than per user. Choose Apollo.io if you want one tool holding the contact database and the outreach sequences, without wiring data providers. Stay with Clay if you need to chain many data providers and AI research steps into custom enrichment tables.

### Why are people leaving Clay?
The documented reasons are: On 11 March 2026 Clay introduced new pricing that split credits into Data Credits and Actions; Actions reset each billing cycle and do not roll over, and new customers go to Launch, Growth or Enterprise plans (11 Mar 2026); Clay's pricing page shows phone-number enrichment, job-change signals and its email sequencer only from the Launch plan; the Free plan caps tables at 200 rows and 500 actions a month (11 Nov 2026). Each is sourced in the section above.

### What is better than Clay?
It depends on the job. Apollo.io suits teams wanting a database plus sequencing, Hunter suits email finding, and ZoomInfo suits enterprise data. Clay is stronger when you combine many data providers and AI research in one table.

## Related on Zekai

- [Apollo.io alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/apollo-io/)
- [Persana AI alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/persana-ai/)
- [ZoomInfo alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/zoominfo/)
- [Sellbird (formerly Harvey) alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/harvey/)
- [AI for Lead Generation & Sales Prospecting](https://zekaiwork.com/professions/ai-lead-generation-sales-automation/)

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Live table, team cost finder and price alerts: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/clay/